Dan Potter,
longtime assistant clerk/administrator of the Second District Court of Appeal,
is leaving that post next week to become clerk/administrator of the Sixth
District Court of Appeal, the 34-year-court employee told the MetNews
yesterday.

•“I’m going to
become the Joseph Lane of San Jose,” he quipped, referring to his longtime
boss.

•Potter, 55,
said his last day at his current post will be next week, and he will begin his
new post March 16. He succeeds Michael Yerly, who retired a year ago.

•Potter
explained that the San Jose-based court contacted him around the time of
Yerly’s retirement, but that he initially hesitated because he has a daughter
in high school here. But his daughter is graduating this spring, and since the
position wasn’t filled earlier, he actively sought it and was chosen, he said.

•Corrine Yochop,
who was Yerly’s top assistant, has been filling the post on an interim basis.
But she has retirement plans of her own and did not seek the appointment,
Potter said.

•Potter has been
Lane’s top assistant for 22 years, and leaving the court for the top job in San
Jose “is certainly bittersweet,” he said. “Not only am I leaving friends and
colleagues, but the justices of this court, who are very dear to me.”

•He added that
he was “taking his Second District Court of Appeal directory” with him,
however, and was taking solace know that “everybody is just a phone call away.”

•Potter noted
that he was born and raised in Los Angeles and has “been to San Jose three
times in my entire life,” although he has visited San Francisco frequently on
court business. He eventually plans to retire in this area, he said, although
he has no idea when that will be.

•The Sixth
District is the smallest of California’s appellate courts, with seven
justices—the Second District has 32—and about 45 employees, compared with 250
at his present court.